There Is No Future In The Dark, Is There?
by Nualie
Summary: Rokuro has a guest in his house. He isn't doing anything, but Rokuro sometimes wishes he did.


**What is this you ask? This is a very very old thing but it's also pretty special to me.**

 **My energy levels have rarely been this low so that's all I say.**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

The last time had begun exactly like today.

The boy had neither moved nor looked up when Rokuro walked into the dimlit room and closed the door shut behind him.

He was curled up upright on the only furniture of the room, a large bed, arms loosely wrapped around his legs. His chin was propped onto the crack between his knees. His eyes were unfocused, looking at nothing in front of him. Was he so deep in thought, he didn't notice him? Or did he simply not care?

Rokuro had stood still a minute, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment, but nothing came. The only light of the room filtered from the closed door, and he had waited, his red eyes quickly adapting to the lack of light.

All he could hear was their unsynchronized breathing, if he ignored the faint background noise from the rest of the house.

He listened. He breathed in, and the boy in front of him breathed out shortly after. Rokuro released the air he was holding before the other one took another breath of his own. And again, and again, he breathed, and they were slowly sinking into a pattern, but he didn't know if he had tried to follow the boy's, of if it was his that was being followed.

Did it matter?

Rokuro had blinked and returned his attention to the boy himself. The exorcist had looked at him before- he had been the one who had set this room up, after all, while the other one was unconscious, and there were the times they had met and fought. But he didn't truly look- his eyes brushed the surface, noting the most important features, and skipped to the next point of interest.

In the dark room he knew, though, there was nothing else to look at, so he had looked.

The boy's face had been completely devoid of emotion, perhaps even more than usual, but that wasn't what he had noticed first. There was a boy who was very still, and if it weren't for the distinct breathing sound, Rokuro might have thought him dead, frozen. The purple locks hadn't looked different from usual, as unruly as ever. Had they met in different circumstances, if they had been different people, perhaps Rokuro would have liked to poke fun at that hair just to annoy him. The bangs obscured his eyes, almost hiding the monstrosity in him, almost succeeding in disguising him into a perfectly normal young, vaguely girly dark-skinned boy, albeit one with unusual purple hair.

Almost.

Human he looked, but human he was not. Rokuro had to remember that. The boy was a murderer, a monster.

He may not be human, had hushed a voice in the back of his mind, but he lives and thinks and dies like one. Can you truly claim to be in the right, being his jailer like this?

Rokuro had had to silence the unpleasant thoughts and resist the urge to shake his head to clear them out of his head.

The other boy still hadn't moved.

Suddenly the silence had been unbearable. Rokuro was suffocating, feeling invisible yet obviously misplaced here, and he had walked out without a word.

"Hey."

The last time had begun exactly like today, but today, he tries to talk first. He receives no answer, however, and the silence settles back.

He isn't acknowledged by any more than a glance, but that is already more response than what this silence has used him to.

He talks again, because he has to ask.

"Do you care?"

The boy who wasn't a boy glances at him again. Something flickers in the one eye that is full of life, and for a split second Rokuro sees more than his own deformed reflection, but the instant passes and the other's eyes are downcast again.

"No."

The word is almost spat. Almost. The almost-vehemence surprises the human of the two, if only because he isn't accustomed to that voice anymore, and even less so when it expresses something else than indifference.

But maybe it's Rokuro's fault. He had said nothing but truth, but it had also been nothing but fact, barer than necessary, and probably quite unhelpful.

The boy's hold on his legs tightens ever so slightly, and the void of emotion parodying a face shifts imperceptibly.

All that Rokuro had told him was "You're in our house in reality" and even he knows it's too little for the enormity of the situation.

Neither say anything, Rokuro trying to understand what he has almost missed, and the other one almost ignoring him.

Almost.

Just like Rokuro is almost sure he is almost lying...

...but there are no certitudes. He dreams not to dwell into his enemy's dark thoughts.

"Okay," he says, placating an uneasy smile on his lips. His senses scream that he shouldn't be here. The room is heavy with a somber energy trying to corrode him just as it mends the other boy together.

Can he really leave, just like that? His conscience is the only thing stopping him.

By all means he should hate the boy, but in this instant he can't bring himself to. What brought them to where they were standing made it difficult, and seeing him like this, curled up on his own in the dark, lonely and small and young, he can't help but feel something akin to pity. Not sympathy, not yet at least, but he feels something and the hate vanishes, and perhaps the silent boy hates that even more.

"Fair enough," he continues, trying to fill the silence, but the uneasiness only thickens. Fair enough. He had enough reason to be hated by the basara. Just like Rokuro surely had enough reason to hate him.

He glimpses at his still interlocutor again, and in a flash he sees someone else- someone he'd hated and fought and killed.

In a flash he can hear the crazy laugh again, and he can't help but remember that he has killed. Now more than ever, just like the almost-child in front of him, he realizes they had been people. Perhaps guilt is what made him so adamant to keep him here and rather than just off him while he was weak, or even take the simple route and leave him over there.

Rokuro is still waiting, but he doesn't know what for. An apology? No, he doesn't think the silent almost-shadow regrets anything. That would be ridiculous, coming from someone such as him, right?

What is he waiting for then? Questions? Is he waiting for demands of explanation? His almost-prisoner is owed that much, surely the basara knows that… but then again, maybe he doesn't.

Maybe he thinks he is waiting for his execution, living his last hours locked in a dark room. Perhaps hoping for a trial, but that is unlikely, for Rokuro knows he knows he would likely lose, in the off chance that he be granted even a parody of one. To humans he is unquestionably a monster and a murderer, an enemy, and he is. How could he be a victim?

Even to himself, Rokuro's thoughts ring wrong.

Perhaps the basara doesn't understand. Perhaps he is lost and scared and putting up a front, closing himself up in suspicion to ward against the hurt and the uncertainty. That would be what many would do, Rokuro thinks, even if maybe not himself.

No, he shouldn't assume the basara thinks like a human would. That would be a mistake. He is toeing the line in front of a dragon in human flesh, he shouldn't forget that.

The haunting laugh rings again in his ears and Rokuro grits his teeth.

Maybe he should offer some kind of reassurance, even if he is not asked for it. Explanations, at the very least. Rokuro opens his mouth, and soundlessly closes it again, not knowing what to say.

The gloom is too overwhelming. He feels a wave of helplessness wash over him and Rokuro realizes it's because he is too much of an intruder.

He turns around to leave, unable to look back. Light floods the room when he opens it, and he hears a slight ruffle behind him.

He cannot leave without a word. He owes an explanation he is unable to complete. Perhaps it's simpler than that, perhaps it isn't his role to explain.

He walks out, oddly refreshed once he enters the corridor, and speaks almost too fast, almost too low, to ease his mind, because it's something the boy in the dark has to know.

"The door isn't locked, Kamui."


End file.
